New drug use evaluation toolkit
Health professionals caring for patients with acute post-operative pain can improve pain management with a new drug use evaluation toolkit developed by the National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS).
The acute postoperative pain drug use evaluation (DUE) toolkit can be used by hospitals to assess practices and ensure interventions lead to improvements in a patient’s experience of pain.
It is designed to support surgical, anaesthetic, pharmacy and nursing staff in public and private hospitals to manage acute pain after surgery and assist hospitals to review practice when new drugs become available.
The DUE toolkit was developed following a national quality improvement project on management of acute postoperative pain in 62 Australian public and private hospitals in 2006 and 2007, and includes an electronic data collection tool (e-DUE) and educational resources.
